Lien Truong: Finding America

December 2008 Cover Woman

Lien Truong takes a sip of her drink and gracefully returns the glass to the immaculate tabletop in a corner of Hing Ta restaurant. A couple of customers follow a waitress to a private table in the back, but not before they spot Truong.

They descend upon her, showering her with enthusiastic salutations and the kind of hugs that greet long-lost family members. She hugs them back, calling them by name, and turns to watch as they settle in at their table in the elegant back room of Hing Ta.

Truong looks around her and smiles gently yet assuredly, almost like she owns the place. In fact, she does. But Truong’s ownership of Hing Ta goes much deeper than serving food and making a profit.

It’s about tradition, honor, kinship and soul.

A plateful of the American dream

It’s a typical day at Hing Ta, 1276 N. Wesleyan Blvd. in Rocky Mount, and Truong is running the cash register, checking on customers, making sure the hot containers at the buffet are full, and communicating with her chef. She notices customers at the door waiting to be seated, and she promptly whisks them to a table, where they smile, take their seats and eye the steam coming from the heaps of hot food.

When there is a quiet moment, Truong pauses, as she often does, to remember how it all began.

At 13, Truong immigrated with her family to the United States from Southern China. After living in Michigan, her family moved to California and she began to fully realize the opportunities that awaited her in a new country. As a woman, doors opened for her here that might always have been closed to her in China. Inside her, a dream was born and grew.

Truong decided to make a way for herself, and she chose to pursue what she knew. Food.

“Food has been deeply connected with me all my life,” Truong says. “In China, you celebrate life by eating. Now, I remember the food to connect with my soul.”

Hing Ta showcases Cantonese, Hunan, Mandarin, Polynesian and Szechuan cuisine, and the authenticity of the dishes is Truong’s pride and joy.

“All the sauces we make are family secrets,” she says. “My restaurant is unique that way, and we only use the freshest ingredients. We even travel overseas and bring spices back.”

The restaurant boasts not only a buffet but an extensive menu that offers customers variety, but at the same time, a constant they can depend on for sustenance and comfort. The menu has stayed the same since the beginning, as have the prices. The restaurant’s chef can make dishes that meet special dietary needs and requirements.

Watching Truong in action makes owning and running a restaurant look easy, but it took courage and determination. After growing up somewhere in the middle of a jumble of 11 children, she decided to make her own way, and moved to North Carolina, where she chose Rocky Mount because of its Southern charm, and opened Hing Ta in 1995.

Catering to both new customers and the faithful patrons who have been eating at Hing Ta for years, Truong serves up plates and to-go boxes of the food that represents her family’s heritage. Another way she honors where they came from is the décor of the restaurant.

At first glance, the tank of fish, the soft pink and green color scheme, the fragile paper lanterns over the lights and the paintings and artwork on the walls are simply in place for aesthetic purposes. But like Truong, there’s more than meets the eye.

They represent Truong herself, a flash of color, subtle beauty, a touch of China in the midst of a small Southern city. Each piece of artwork that hangs on the walls has a story to tell from Truong’s past. The ones a relative brought back from a faraway land just for Truong, and the beloved one her mother insisted she bring with her and hang in her business.

The relics from her heritage frame Truong naturally, and she looks picture perfect in her environment. Surrounded by items that remind her of who she is, where she came from and what she stands for, Truong is free to enjoy the rewards of her hard work.

For her, the hard work is the reward. Customers appreciate the quality of their meal when they visit Hing Ta, and in return, they open up and tell Truong about their lives.